


all the white lies

by Joana789



Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Insight, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Season/Series 03, Self-Discovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 11:43:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9383462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joana789/pseuds/Joana789
Summary: It’s all about those stupid fucking quizzes he finds online, and a little about his mom, and a little about Jonas asking, ”Isak, are you sure you’re fine?” and a little about those moments in the night when he can’t sleep and actually forgets, for just a second, that he’s not supposed to want to kiss other boys.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I needed a stress relief because my finals are coming, hence this fic. Sorry if it's messy. It was supposed to be shorter.
> 
> One day I'll write something better, I promise.

 

It starts with hints. Isak sends them to himself.

It starts with the way Jonas bites his lip when he focuses on something and throws his head back when he laughs; with how Isak prefers low voices over high-pitched ones; with a girl that smiles at him across the schoolyard and he turns his gaze away instead of smiling back.

Isak doesn’t really like soft curves and gentle lines and curls and shapes if he’s being honest. Everything that girls are made of, all those things.

 _Do others feel like this, too_ , he wonders, once, but then quickly discovers that no, that’s not how others feel. The other boys look at girls with their eyes gleaming and with smiles on their faces; they flirt with girls and talk about girls and go on dates with girls and make out with girls at parties and—

And Isak’s a little lost.

  
———

  
”Isak?” Jonas says, and Isak looks up from the game he’s been playing on his phone. Jonas is frowning. ”Are you okay?”

Isak wants to shrug but doesn’t. He says, ”Yeah.”

It doesn’t really feel true.

  
———

  
He doesn’t know what feels true, is the issue. That’s the one problem he has.

The strange thing he once felt for Jonas that he never put a name to came and went, but sometimes it feels as though it left something behind in Isak’s mind, as if not to be completely forgotten. Or, rather, as though it took something away. That’s how Isak sees it. That’s how he explains it to himself.

(The interest is what it took, maybe. Or the ease of feigning it all.)

He kisses girls, listens to them giggle and they pull at his hair and touch his skin and it all feels so plain. He does it all because everyone does it. He flirts and jokes and goes on dates because everyone else flirts and goes on dates, too.

Isak feels like he’s been lying his whole life.

But then again, if he were to tell anyone the truth, what would he say, anyway?

  
———

  
_I’m gay_ , he’d say, he thinks sometimes because the thought keeps lurking in the back of his mind and it echoes in his head like a mantra. _I’m gay_ , he’d say, because he thinks that might be it, after all— he doesn’t like labels, he doesn’t _know_ much about labels, but this one sounds like it could fit, somehow, if he had to choose. The words would feel strange in his mouth, like a sentence in a language he’s never heard before, but still. He’d say it, and then people would look at him, stare and ask questions, his parents and Jonas and his classmates at school. His mom, with her faith and her God and her daily texts that Isak never reads.

(Except that sometimes, late at night, when it’s dark enough outside and the world feels different, the quiet shielding him and locking him in, he does, because he misses her, even if only a little, just a bit, and he doesn’t have anything else left to do, anyway.

And he scrolls through the texts, the mess of letters and punctuation marks mixed together, reads quote after quote and word by word, and can’t help but feel like one huge fucking mistake because he is the way he… _is_.

 _”I’ve tried, mom_ ,” he wants to write back, as if his mother would know what he meant at all. ” _I’ve tried and it doesn’t work, nothing works and I don’t know what to do anymore._ ”

And the messages keep coming, every day, and Isak never once writes back.)

  
———

  
So Isak never says, never lets the words stay in his mind for longer than a second, because if he kept them, wouldn’t that make them real?

  
———

  
It’s not easy, but it could be one day.

Isak could get good at it. Better. He learns how to smile back convincingly enough and how to act cool. He learns what girls like and tries to be exactly that and learns what they don’t like and is that sometimes, too, just to mess with them, because isn’t that how it works? He’s smooth, plays with words, leans against a wall and follows a girl with his eyes and Magnus groans one day, ”How come you’ve got such game, bro?”

 _”I just don’t care,”_ he wants to say but doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t. He doesn’t mention how plain it feels, and how he wishes could just ditch it all, leave this place behind and go somewhere else to be someone else. He doesn’t say how lost he feels. How his chest feels heavy with everything he should be and isn’t.

”It’s just you who doesn’t have any,” Isak sneers instead, shrugging, and only takes a breath when the others laugh.

  
———

  
He’s not brave. That’s a fact.

He’s not brave like Eskild, who is out and proud and brings guys home and is not afraid to label himself because he just knows who he is and it’s that simple. He’s not brave like Sana, who argues and fights for her own sake and defends everything she believes in, who is true, as unapologetic as she is honest. He’s not brave like Noora, who followed a guy she loved to another country but had enough courage to come back on her own.  
Isak’s not good at being brave. He’s better at hiding and sneaking past people — his shoulders hunched and his hood up. At fitting in, at twisting the truth so that it matches this idea of himself he’d created in his head such a long time ago it feels more like a shield than anything else at this point. Isak’s good at that — coming up with images, and impressions, and lies.

  
———

  
But then Even steps in.

  
———

  
Even makes the world tilt sideways, he makes Isak’s head spin and his gaze feels electrifying, makes Isak’s skin tingle.

This has never happened before. Not like this.

Isak’s a little different around Even. He lets himself be, in a way he cannot quite define. It’s all shivers down his spine and a smile that pulls at the corners of his lips before he can realize, it’s a gaze that lingers a little too long, a tug in his chest, an itch to touch that he can’t get rid of.

Even smiles brightly and talks about what he likes, music and people and places, and his laugh is dazzling and his eyes are teasing and serious all at once. His room is full of movie posters and drawings and half-done homework scattered all over his desk. He wears layers on layers on layers and smokes like he’s done it for years because maybe he really has. He makes Isak relax, he makes Isak tense up, he’s all sharp angles and lines and his voice is deep and Isak doesn’t know what he’s _doing_.

  
———

  
(Isak might have a problem, and the problem is this — around Even, he feels less and less like a lie.

It’s a dangerous thing.)

  
———

  
And then Even kisses him in this ridiculous pool and for a second, Isak forgets how to breathe. The world doesn’t break, no — it’s as if someone drew back a curtain, rather. It’s as if someone opened a door.

Later, in Isak’s room, they change out of their soaked clothes and pretend to sneak glances at each other, giggling, and Even kisses him again, presses his hands against Isak’s skin, cups his face and maybe they were both freezing just mere minutes ago, but not anymore.

Even’s kisses are all hot, open-mouthed and there’s no outside world, nothing but the locked door of Isak’s room, sheets on his bed, the shape of Even’s wide smile pressed against Isak’s neck, his teeth grazing Isak’s lower lip. It all feels so sudden, but anticipated, too, and that’s something Isak doesn’t quite understand, whatever it is that’s unfurling in his stomach.

He threads his fingers through Even’s hair and hopes Even can’t feel how his hands tremble just a tiny bit.

 _There’s a boy in my bed_ , Isak thinks, because Even is solid against him, is the weight that’s pressing him into the mattress, an unyielding presence. _There’s a boy in my bed and the world is still spinning, how crazy is that?_

”What are you thinking about?” Even asks, because Isak’s slowly learning that Even’s the kind of person who’d asks those questions. His eyes are soft, his breath is warm and his touch is electric; it creates sparks.

 _You_ , Isak wants to say. _You, you, you_.

  
———

  
Here’s another one of Isak’s lies — he’s not problematic at all. He’s a clean cut, a safe place, something genuine to believe in. _Look_ , he’s saying, with everything he does and everything he acts like, _I’m a regular guy. I’m good._

He does that with his flatmates, and with his friends, and with Even, too, in the end, and he pretends this is what he is. It would be a better version of the world, really, if Isak could act like he never had a crush on his best friend, and if his parents never made the reality around him crumble down to ruins, if his dad never left his mom and if Isak wasn’t afraid of the truth inside of him spilling, because there would be no truth to be spilled in the first place.

It’s all about those stupid fucking quizzes he finds online, and a little about his mom, and a little about Jonas asking, ”Isak, are you sure you’re fine?” and a little about those moments in the night when he can’t sleep and actually forgets, for just a second, that he’s not supposed to want to kiss other boys.

Other boys. And one in particular.

  
———

  
Even is such a peculiar person, in Isak’s mind. He’s vibrant, and laid-back, and has a thing for cliche romantic movies, and can be very quiet sometimes, and his smile makes Isak feel warm, and he kisses like the world is about to end, all over again, every time.

This doesn’t quite add up right.

Because Isak is a guy who can barely cook his own dinner and forgets to pay rent and only does his laundry when he runs out of clean clothes and he lies to his friends and lies to his parents and lies to the silence of his room. He’s a guy who is afraid to name the feeling inside his chest, a guy who leaves a part of himself behind everywhere he goes, who stores it all away and locks it all up until his half-truths cling to him so tight they feel like second skin.

And then Even draws it all out, with a word or a gesture or a kiss that rattles Isak’s bones, and really, Isak doesn’t get it.

 _What do you see in me_ , he thinks, grips Even’s hips or slips his hands under his shirt and breathes, breathes. _What’s so unusual about me that makes you want to look in the first place?_

  
———

  
Whatever the answer is, maybe that’s what makes Even back away.

It hurts just slightly — or more than that, hell, because breathing is difficult now, and sleeping, and not sleeping, too — but Isak hates the sheer fact that he feels anything at all because he should have seen it coming, shouldn’t he? Even’s been a fleeting detail since the beginning, slipping out of reach as easily as it gets, with his laugh and his drawings and his girlfriend, stripping Isak down to the bones, down to the core.

It’s so unfair, how Even came and made Isak feel a little more like truth, and then hauled off and left.

 

———

  
Then the rumors spread.

People start talking. Whispering behind Isak’s back like he can’t see and they follow him with their eyes everywhere he goes, hide their sneers and gossip and connect the pieces of a story that isn’t theirs at all and just like that, Isak knows his lies were too weak. His mask has been giving way.

He doesn’t know what to do anymore.

 _If I tell anyone, will the world break_ , he wonders, because in that moment, when he walks through the schoolyard and passes people in hallways and hunches his shoulders, this very idea seems highly probable. Isak can feel the ground already shaking, feels it in his head and in his throat and in his fingertips.

He braces himself.

 

———

  
But he tells Jonas, and the world keeps spinning.

That’s so weird.

”Is that why?” Jonas only says and shoots him a sideway glance. _Is that why you’ve been such an asshole lately_ , he doesn’t say. Or _is that why you were lying and lying and lying?_

Isak smiles apologetically, and shrugs and answers, ”Yeah.”

It’s the truth, at last.

  
———

  
Isak tells the boys, too, and Eskild, and has a feeling Noora knows somehow as well, and it still makes him feel out of place, but it lifts a weight off his chest, too, and that’s something he can handle.

”Isak,” Eskild tells him one evening, and Isak’s expecting to hear a bad joke or an embarrassing thing, but nothing like that comes. ”It was all very brave of you, you know.”

Isak turns to him, in that moment, and he thinks about a drawing he found in the pocket of his jacket, thinks about the boy who drew it for him, and how the very same boy made him laugh and made him hurt and made him _feel_.

”Thanks,” Isak says, and it makes Eskild smile.

  
———

  
And Isak doesn’t really know why, but for some reason Even comes back, after days and nights and weeks — for a reason bigger than a single text message or avoiding each other or sketches about parallel universes.

His kisses say, _Sorry_ , and _Hello_ , and, _I was gone but now I’m back_ and Isak isn't drowning this time. This time it feels different. Better.

Even bites down on Isak’s lip, sucks bruises into his skin, asks, _Will you have me?_ and Isak kisses back, answers, _Yes_.

  
———

  
It’s a new concept — Isak and Even, Even and Isak — but a familiar one, too. Isak’s never had that before, but it’s easy, easy to follow and easy to learn; the way Even presses him into the mattress or against a wall, the way he hums when he makes breakfast and plays with Isak’s fingers when they’re watching a movie, the way he kisses and whispers words into Isak’s neck.

 _A couple_ , Isak wonders, once, and even forming the thought is a cautious process, hesitant, because he’s been in relationships before, but never like this, never with a boy and never with a person like Even. _A couple. Is that what we are?_

And it’s such a strange thing.

  
———

  
(But then Even’s not a fleeting detail anymore, or a mirage, or a mystery. He stops being one, all of a sudden but gradually still, somewhere between one night and the other, between the moment Isak learns what bipolar disorder is exactly and the moment he leaves his parents behind because Even needs him and he has to _go_. Between the hotel suite and the silence of Isak’s own room, dark and peaceful and warm.

 _This is the boy I'm in love with_ , Isak thinks, pressing Even closer to his own body, sharing warmth.

The realization is not as scary as he'd expected it to be.)

  
———

  
And Isak will keep him close and safe and _his_. No matter what.

  
———

  
Even’s strong, is the thing. He’s strong although he might not realize it sometimes, or deny it or act like he’s not. Isak just needs to be here to remind him, day by day or minute by minute; it’s that simple.

”Why are you doing this?” Even asks on one of his worse days, gesturing vaguely at nothing in particular, meaning _us_ and _me_ and _all this_ and _everything else_.

Isak brushes his hair away from his eyes. ”Doing what?”

Even looks at him for a second too long and then drops it, closes his eyes with a sigh and the subject hangs in the air, cut off by his change of mind, but it makes Isak wonder. _You helped me, so now I’m helping you_ , he wants to say, but knows it’s so, so much more than that because what they have is not just a favor for a favor.

What they have is curling under the covers together, and watching weird movies and skipping school once or twice and discovering each other. They have quiet nights and busy days, they have each other’s clothes, they have clarity between them and no lies, not anymore. They are together, and that’s so much it makes Isak’s head spin.

They’re learning as they go. They're falling in love.

  
———

  
”Hey,” Even mutters into Isak’s collarbone, breath warm against his skin, weeks later, or months, or an eternity. ”How are you?”

That’s a question he asks often, no matter where they are or what time it is. One that makes Even’s eyes gleam and Isak’s chest swell, and it’s always pronounced carefully, in a deep voice and in warm words.

Isak threads his fingers through Even’s hair and answers, ”I’m great.”

It’s the most genuine thing.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://slythaerinss.tumblr.com)


End file.
